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How so? Naively, it seems like capitalism is a means of “top group” selection, so long as there is relatively high chance for social mobility and opportunity.

How so? Naively, it seems like capitalism is a means of “top group” selection, so long as there is relatively high chance for social mobility and opportunity. The method which worked better for chickens still involved selecting the best cohort (capitalism), and this improved over open breeding (socialism) or winner-take-all (monarchy).

lordnacho 8y ago
How often do people get promoted on the basis that they will make the team better? Have you ever heard of that? How often do you hear "the IT guys kept things running well, enabling the sales people to bring the money in, so they get a piece of that?" Most of the time people who get stuff are the ones who have been attributed the most output individually.
- Nasrudith 8y ago
  That depends on the management and is part of what makes a good manager. I have heard of many accounts of successful and well liked technical managers admitting their job is to be a shield to their team/abstraction layer to allow them ability to focus and explore appropriately while not being buffeted by contradictory direct commands and meetings - all while not ignoring them unduly either. Upper management was perfectly okay with that because they had good release quality and time tables.
  - stnmtn 8y ago
    But how often do people who do the work that brings in money (in this example, the people coding the project) get a fair share of that profit?
    - chooseaname 8y ago
      Define "fair". Surely the CEO is worth 800 times what any single coder is.
      - vondur 8y ago
        I think you forgot the sarcasm tags.
        chooseaname 8y ago
        Sometimes it's fun to leave things a little ambiguous. But, yeah, you figured it out.
- tomp 8y ago
  Right, that's a single company's management system, but our economic system selects for best companies == groups of people. So, no, the point was completely wrong.
  - chimprich 8y ago
    If you consider the hens in the analogy to be companies (rather than people) I think it holds. We select for companies that can outcompete other companies rather than ones that contribute the most to the system.
    - zeveb 8y ago
      > If you consider the hens in the analogy to be companies (rather than people) I think it holds. If you consider a fern to be an alligator then it's an example of a deadly reptile. > We select for companies that can outcompete other companies rather than ones that contribute the most to the system. I think that the whole point of our system is to ensure that firms which outcompete other firms are the ones which contribute the most total value to the system. Where this isn;t the case (e.g. as with the effects of mass advertising, monopolies &c.) it's a bug, not a feature — and should be adjusted for.
      - mirimir 8y ago
        I've played a minor support role in numerous fraud and antitrust lawsuits. Although experts and counsel said a great deal about economic and social welfare, the key evidence involved what people intended and planned (based on documents, email, etc) and what they did (based on business records). Determining which firms "contribute the most total value to the system" is just too hard to be a useful strategy. Translating that back to the workplace, I'm more inclined to agree with TFA.
        zeveb 8y ago
        > Determining which firms "contribute the most total value to the system" is just too hard to be a useful strategy. Yes, it is — which is why we have a free market instead of a central authority trying to determine who contributes the most. Wisdom of crowds & all that.
- FakeComments 8y ago
  My point was not that this happens as often as it should, but rather that the system we use now is built around the recognition that it’s important to do so, and consistently produces the most of that kind of result out of any of our systems. That is, if you look at market based systems against the others, in practice, they have the most people who end up wealthy due to merit — and why McDolands is one of the largest minters of “minority” millionaires ever. This is important, because it implies the solution to our problems with the present is not to throw it out for a system that does worse asymptotically (eg, swap capitalism for socialism), but rather to further optimize and refine capitalism.
- nieve 8y ago
  This mindset can spread to higher levels if it's allowed to. At one point during the dot-com bubble the company I worked for was acquired by one where ad sales and biz dev were granted credit for all income and everything else in the company was considered a loss. This was a _financial media_ company and without fresh content the entire thing would have keeled over immediately, but via appearing to hold the purse things had slid to the point that ads and business development had power over almost all decisions. They bought us because they were trying to move into premium subscription products like we did, but we didn't know how bad it was until we found out that every dollar we brought in was attributed to the business development group and on paper our entire subsidiary was a money hole. From individual employees up to the C-level divisions they judged everything solely on what was easiest to put into a spreadsheet and it destroyed them in less than a year. Sad to say my hope they were unique was wildly optimistic.
kaikai 8y ago
You’re confusing economic systems with governmental systems. It’s entirely possible to have capitalist monarchies, for example.
imh 8y ago
It'll reward the companies with the best groups of people, but not the best groups of companies, which I think the other comment was getting at.
- atoav 8y ago
  I am not sure what best means in this context..? Most utilitaristic? Best in stealing public resources while being seen as a philantropist? What the best is, depends on the incentives, the goals and the company culture. The best Mafioso in a group of the best mafiosi will be without a doubt a damn good Mafioso – but what does this mean for the rest of society?
  - imh 8y ago
    The definition of best is irrelevant. The point is the distinction between maximizing something for an individual versus maximizing that same thing for the group.
    - atoav 8y ago
      It isn’t irrelevant in practice, not for those who suffer from it and not for society as a whole because of missed potential. I understand why a isolated look at these things could make sense though
aylmao 8y ago
> The method which worked better for chickens still involved selecting the best cohort (capitalism), and this improved over open breeding (socialism) The method that worked best for people that is. It has been pretty damn horrible for chickens. From the comment: > Indeed, for some strange reason, the individual breeding programs which had been so successful at increasing egg production now required hens to have their beaks clipped, or be housed in individual cages, or they would peck each other to death. That doesn't sound like "better for chickens" at all. If I were a chicken I'd take open breeding any day.
- FakeComments 8y ago
  The thing you quoted isn’t related to what I called the better method, but rather the one I compared to monarchy/central planning — a poor idea. The one I called a better method was the top cohort selection, not individual selection.
  - aylmao 8y ago
    Oh gotcha, misunderstood your comment.

lordnacho 8y ago

How often do people get promoted on the basis that they will make the team better? Have you ever heard of that? How often do you hear "the IT guys kept things running well, enabling the sales people to bring the money in, so they get a piece of that?" Most of the time people who get stuff are the ones who have been attributed the most output individually.

Nasrudith 8y ago
That depends on the management and is part of what makes a good manager. I have heard of many accounts of successful and well liked technical managers admitting their job is to be a shield to their team/abstraction layer to allow them ability to focus and explore appropriately while not being buffeted by contradictory direct commands and meetings - all while not ignoring them unduly either. Upper management was perfectly okay with that because they had good release quality and time tables.
- stnmtn 8y ago
  But how often do people who do the work that brings in money (in this example, the people coding the project) get a fair share of that profit?
  - chooseaname 8y ago
    Define "fair". Surely the CEO is worth 800 times what any single coder is.
    - vondur 8y ago
      I think you forgot the sarcasm tags.
      - chooseaname 8y ago
        Sometimes it's fun to leave things a little ambiguous. But, yeah, you figured it out.
tomp 8y ago
Right, that's a single company's management system, but our economic system selects for best companies == groups of people. So, no, the point was completely wrong.
- chimprich 8y ago
  If you consider the hens in the analogy to be companies (rather than people) I think it holds. We select for companies that can outcompete other companies rather than ones that contribute the most to the system.
  - zeveb 8y ago
    > If you consider the hens in the analogy to be companies (rather than people) I think it holds. If you consider a fern to be an alligator then it's an example of a deadly reptile. > We select for companies that can outcompete other companies rather than ones that contribute the most to the system. I think that the whole point of our system is to ensure that firms which outcompete other firms are the ones which contribute the most total value to the system. Where this isn;t the case (e.g. as with the effects of mass advertising, monopolies &c.) it's a bug, not a feature — and should be adjusted for.
    - mirimir 8y ago
      I've played a minor support role in numerous fraud and antitrust lawsuits. Although experts and counsel said a great deal about economic and social welfare, the key evidence involved what people intended and planned (based on documents, email, etc) and what they did (based on business records). Determining which firms "contribute the most total value to the system" is just too hard to be a useful strategy. Translating that back to the workplace, I'm more inclined to agree with TFA.
      - zeveb 8y ago
        > Determining which firms "contribute the most total value to the system" is just too hard to be a useful strategy. Yes, it is — which is why we have a free market instead of a central authority trying to determine who contributes the most. Wisdom of crowds & all that.
FakeComments 8y ago
My point was not that this happens as often as it should, but rather that the system we use now is built around the recognition that it’s important to do so, and consistently produces the most of that kind of result out of any of our systems. That is, if you look at market based systems against the others, in practice, they have the most people who end up wealthy due to merit — and why McDolands is one of the largest minters of “minority” millionaires ever. This is important, because it implies the solution to our problems with the present is not to throw it out for a system that does worse asymptotically (eg, swap capitalism for socialism), but rather to further optimize and refine capitalism.
nieve 8y ago
This mindset can spread to higher levels if it's allowed to. At one point during the dot-com bubble the company I worked for was acquired by one where ad sales and biz dev were granted credit for all income and everything else in the company was considered a loss. This was a _financial media_ company and without fresh content the entire thing would have keeled over immediately, but via appearing to hold the purse things had slid to the point that ads and business development had power over almost all decisions. They bought us because they were trying to move into premium subscription products like we did, but we didn't know how bad it was until we found out that every dollar we brought in was attributed to the business development group and on paper our entire subsidiary was a money hole. From individual employees up to the C-level divisions they judged everything solely on what was easiest to put into a spreadsheet and it destroyed them in less than a year. Sad to say my hope they were unique was wildly optimistic.

kaikai 8y ago

You’re confusing economic systems with governmental systems. It’s entirely possible to have capitalist monarchies, for example.

imh 8y ago

It'll reward the companies with the best groups of people, but not the best groups of companies, which I think the other comment was getting at.

atoav 8y ago
I am not sure what best means in this context..? Most utilitaristic? Best in stealing public resources while being seen as a philantropist? What the best is, depends on the incentives, the goals and the company culture. The best Mafioso in a group of the best mafiosi will be without a doubt a damn good Mafioso – but what does this mean for the rest of society?
- imh 8y ago
  The definition of best is irrelevant. The point is the distinction between maximizing something for an individual versus maximizing that same thing for the group.
  - atoav 8y ago
    It isn’t irrelevant in practice, not for those who suffer from it and not for society as a whole because of missed potential. I understand why a isolated look at these things could make sense though

aylmao 8y ago

> The method which worked better for chickens still involved selecting the best cohort (capitalism), and this improved over open breeding (socialism) The method that worked best for people that is. It has been pretty damn horrible for chickens. From the comment: > Indeed, for some strange reason, the individual breeding programs which had been so successful at increasing egg production now required hens to have their beaks clipped, or be housed in individual cages, or they would peck each other to death. That doesn't sound like "better for chickens" at all. If I were a chicken I'd take open breeding any day.

FakeComments 8y ago
The thing you quoted isn’t related to what I called the better method, but rather the one I compared to monarchy/central planning — a poor idea. The one I called a better method was the top cohort selection, not individual selection.
- aylmao 8y ago
  Oh gotcha, misunderstood your comment.